Yorkville enquirer. [volume] (Yorkville, S.C.) 1855-2006, 1887-07-13
GOING DOWN TO JERICHO.

The thieves hereabOuts, namely
the Bedouins, are not all done away
with yet. At all events, people 60
ing from Jerusalem Dead Stewards
must be provided with guards, who,
on the principle that it takes thief
to catch thief, are also Bedouins.
Picturesque looking fellows, too, they
are, in their long, two foot wide,
striped in black and white ulster
cloaks, and their silken, tasselled
head-gear, with q long, brass bound
gun slung across the back, a big re-
volver in the belt, and curved Da-
mascus sword swinging jauntily from
one side. Picturesque indeed your
Bedouin is, as he moves along in
never so stately fashion on his
Arabian horse, Youchsafing once in
while to turn his bronzed, black
whiskered face around to see how
you are getting on. But of thieves
we saw none, though the shepherds
along the road glared meaningly
once in a while. Indeed, news has
just come of an intrepid American,
proceeding alone to the Jordan hav-s
ing an ugly encounter. ls.'s.'T
We read the expression "doWn to
Jericho" down indeed, from an alti-
tuue Of $500 feet above to depth of
1000 feet below. You pass around
Olivet by the supposed triunphal
path of our Lord, and then in half an
hours experience with the meanest
stone heaps, find yourself at Betha-
ny, where of course they are ready
to show you hut called "the house
of Martha and Mary" while the
tomb of Lazarus is as assuredly not
lacking in a country where the slight
est shreds of not only Scripture but
tradition are made of account in the
manufacture ofholy G? places. Then
follows q siege of saddle work, one
could hardly call it riding, of going
down into the valleys by the stoniest
of roads, and of ascending hills by
the same sort. It is little consolation
to bruised bones that it is the brook
Cherith at the valley of Achor that
you see. This up and down process,
if we'll kept up for six hours, brings
to a grand view, namely that of this
wide plain through which flows the
Jordan to the Dead Sea lying large
and blue seemingly at our feet, and
bordered on the opposite shore by
the steep Nebo mountains, indis-
tinct towards the south from the
mist which tho remarkable evapora-
tion of water causes to form over
the surface Of the lake. Over there,
among those high lands, is Moab,
not a village, or even a dwelling, In
sight to break. its vast mOnotony.
Behind that desolate shore and land
of Moab is Arabia, and when one
thinks of the immense stretch OF
desert to where ter in the shape Of
the Persian gulf can break upon the
sight, this lack of life seems not an
uniting introduction.
Slowly the caravan descends into
the plain. "Where is Jericho ?" says
some one, hardly thinking that the
handful Of huts just beyond the or
ange trees can be the modern repre-
sentativeof the proud old city whose
walls behaved in such an unnatural
way when theintrepid Joshua march
ed his forces against them, and the
priests blew their trumpets. Still, a
man whom God delegated to control
the sun and moon mi ight we'll be left
to take care of a city. Two hours
away lies the Dead Seattle city
of Elijah's later life, the city where
Saul came to be made king, where
David returned from exile, and the
then "city fpalms," now not a single
one is left-approaching the water
as near as possible, but no palm city
could be built on shores which were
blighted with salt.-E. j. Balda0in's
letter in Cleveland Leader.